


the last halloween

by fruectose



Series: gifts for my friends <3 [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, and drinking, but there's smoking involved, im just going to tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27899575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruectose/pseuds/fruectose
Summary: who doesn't love the moments after a rager, when the night is winding down and you run into the girl of your dreams?My friend T turned 21 and this is placeholder fic until I write something better for her <3
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: gifts for my friends <3 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160090
Comments: 1
Kudos: 53





	the last halloween

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thebeautifulgeneral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeautifulgeneral/gifts).



The night is kind of perfect.

Halloween means that party goers are either the best or the worst of themselves, and Percy falls a little bit in love with everyone at the club. He leans against the wall, the DJ’s beats echoing under his shoes and the bouncer swings the door open to let in a Barbie and Ken and a breeze hits Percy’s face, cooling the sweat he’d built up. He glances back at the dancefloor, catches sight of Rachel and Grover- Poison Ivy and David Attenborough- dancing with a bunch of their other friends while Ciara plays loud enough to potentially damage his ears permanently, but he’s had a fair few drinks and tonight, he’s happy and free and untouchable.

It’s the afterparty to end all afterparties, planned out and hosted by Alpha Omega and held at MASH House, only one of New York’s finest nightclubs, and it’s the perfect end to the epic Halloween ball. Percy closes his eyes for a moment and take it in- this, he thinks, is what total uninhibition feels like. Standing here in costume, the mysterious substance that makes the walls a little sticky, the screams of delight at every change in song. This moment, this night, is pure freedom.

“Hey, Superman.” A voice cuts across his appreciation for life harshly. He looks over his shoulder to see her and he’s drunk enough to think _her_ , once more, but more dreamily. She’s dressed like a honeybee- long black stockings and a droopy striped body with wings sticking out behind her. Her makeup is flawless in stark comparison to the cheek tint Percy knows is currently running down Rachel’s face. He eyes- oh god, her _eyes_ \- are a bright grey, studying him suspiciously as if she isn’t sure she knows him or not.

“You’re kidding.” Percy says and she crosses her arms over her chest. She raises one colored in eyebrow and he almost tells her how beautiful he’s always thought she was.

“About what?” She demands. “Anyway, you’re blocking the door.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Percy moves and she squeezes past him, her wing caressing his cheek like his mother used to as she struggles out. “I’m Spider-Man.” He says behind her.

“I don’t care.” She calls without turning around. The bouncer isn’t subtle in the way he checks her out, and maybe she’s lucky that the big, floppy bee belly around her leaves a whole lot to the imagination. The door closes behind her and the DJ switches up the music to Taio Cruz and Percy feels a surge of bravery- from the atmosphere, his costume or the nostalgia of noughties music, he doesn’t know.

“Hey, hold on, Annabeth!” He races behind her because he’s had just enough to not care what happens if he does. She hasn’t gotten far, and it becomes apparent she has no intention to either, because he finds her in the smokers’ section, rifling through the small black purse that hangs by her hip. She looks up when he approaches her. _Go out with me, please_.

“What do you want, Stupid-Man?” She snaps, fingers seemingly finally finding a box of cigarettes. She extracts one carefully and sticks it between her lips.

“Since when do you smoke?” Percy asks her, ignoring the name. He doesn’t know if he’s ever known her to be a smoker. Then again, the fact that he’s never taken her out on a date is a good enough indication that he doesn’t know her half as well as he hopes to. She frowns.

“I don’t even know who you are.” She glares and Percy realizes that he’s got his mask on.

“Oh. Sorry.” He tugs it off and her eyes widen in recognition.

“Oh. Hi, Percy.” She gives him a small smile and then an awkward hug. Under the streetlights, she looks like a queen among bees. She tilts her head and offers him a cigarette and he shakes his head. She shrugs and sets it back in her purse before pulling out a lighter. “You don’t mind if I-?”  
“In the designated smoking section?” Percy asks, and he’s delighted to see the smile that tugs at her lips. “It’ll be hard to rationalize that.”

She lights up her cigarette and inhales, her eyelids fluttering shut as she does. Percy is content to watch her, the way her pink lips pull together in a pout and her cheeks puff up ever so slightly. Her nose is straight and her cheekbones high and her chin a sharp point and there has never been a woman to walk this earth half as beautiful as Annabeth Chase. She turns as far away from him as she can and lets out a puff of smoke, grey and mysterious and maybe just a little bit magical, too. If Percy were an artist, he might have wanted to recreate the angle of her jaw, the diamond shape of her face, the cupid’s bow on her lip. But Percy’s no artist, but he’s also not sure he’d trust Da Vinci to put something as radiant as her on canvas, either.

“Junior year in high school.” She says and Percy blinks. She opens her eyes slowly and almost looks amused at his confusion.

“What?”

“You asked me when I started smoking.” She says. She looks down at the cigarette between her two fingers like it’s an old friend. “I was sixteen and I was bored. It’s not a deep story. No messy divorces or ones that got away- nothing triggered it.”

“Oh.” Percy watches her as she takes another long drag and puffs it out.

“People always want a story.” Annabeth leans against the makeshift barricade. They’re the only two people in the smoking area. “It’s more exciting, I guess, to make it seem like this is some kind of indication of life spiraling out of control.”

“Your life doesn’t spiral like that.” Percy tells her. Annabeth has run in the same circles as him for four years, and he’s never seen her break down once, not one hair on that head has ever sat in the wrong angle. “You’re good at keeping things under control.”

He knows this about her, knows it for sure. Knows because when shit hits the roof, she’s the first person his friends go to. A problem solver. Annabeth’s smile is tired.

“It’s a fun illusion.” She says quietly. “I just know what most people don’t realize: nobody has control over anything.”

Percy’s never heard her be so cynical. In every conversation he’s ever had with her, she’s been a source of light. _I’m sure, Percy, if you set your mind to it you can get those three thousand words done within the next four hours_! Stupid, unwavering support. Percy looks at her now, cigarette in hand, and wonders if maybe he’s never known her at all.

“I think people just like stories. Everyone wants to know the stories behind my tattoos.” Percy tells her and she raises her brows.

“And you have one for each of them?” She asks, because she knows the answer. Percy has an arm full of intricate tattoos, covering every inch of skin from his wrist to his chest. In twenty one years of life, it’s almost impossible to have collected _that_ many stories.

“I was sixteen.” He tells her and he feels giddy with the idea of having an inside joke with her. “And I was bored.”

“And then you were what, seventeen and bored? Eighteen and bored?” Annabeth asks and Percy grins.

“By that logic, you’re bored now.” He says, nodding to her as she takes another puff. She shrugs her shoulders.

“Better a cigarette than a needle.” She shudders. “I can’t do needles.”

It’s a strange feeling, Percy thinks, to know something about her like this. To learn her outside of their friends, to hear her speak to him alone. He tries to memorize it all; her face, her fingers, her words, her voice.

“I’m scared of letting my mom down.” He tells her. He doesn’t know if she cares at all, doesn’t know if she’s locking away little details about him in her mind. “It’s a dumb fear, but that’s… there’s nothing that freaks me out more.”

“I think it’s nice.” She tells him, her voice faraway. There’s no rational explanation for it, but Percy gets a feeling she’s thinking about her own parents. “More noble than my biggest fear, at least.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” He asks.

“Spiders.” She says, and pokes the one on his costume, her bony finger stabbing him in the sternum.

Percy laughs, because of course a woman like her is powerful until there’s a spider in the room. She turns pink and averts her gaze, sucking intently on her cigarette.

“So you really don’t know the first thing about Spider-Man, do you?”

“I don’t like spiders and I don’t like superheroes.” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “You tell me if you think I’d care to find out.”

“I’m coming to find that I don’t know enough about you to make that inference at all.” Percy tells her and she takes the last drag of her cigarette before snuffing it out in the ashtray.

“You want to get to know me?” She asks through a cloud of smoke. Percy’s brain is buzzing with energy and he nods his head. She lets out a laugh so low her voice cracks and shrugs her shoulders. “Walk me home?”

“Of course.”

They take off down the road, paying no attention to the hundreds of empty taxis that whiz past them. Percy is pretty sure her apartment is a good, long walk away, but he’s not complaining. The air is cool and the moon is bright overhead and he’s spending time with the girl of his dreams and already the euphoria of the nightclub is a distant memory.

“What answers do you want from me?” She asks. Her heels clack against the pavement loudly and there’s comfort in the rhythm.

“Anything?” Percy asks. She nods. “Why’d you leave the party?”

  
Annabeth rolls her eyes but her smile is wide. “I met a cute boy dressed in Spandex and decided I’d rather chat to him for a while before getting an early night.”

“You’re lying.” Percy studies her and she lets out a laugh.

“I said I’d answer. Never promised I’d be honest.”

“You’re sneaky.” Percy tells her, nudging her shoulder with his gently. “We’ll circle back to that.”

“Does that mean it’s my turn to ask you a question?” She asks. Percy gestures for her to carry on. “You have to promise to be honest.”

“That’s unfair.”

“I’m unfair. Deal with it or hail me a cab.”

“Fine. I’ll be honest.”

“Why’d you and Rachel break up?”

“Don’t know if you know this about her, but she’s a lesbian.” Percy tells her flatly. “This is a stupid question. It makes up for the fact that you lied on my turn.”

Annabeth laughs again; a drunken, loud laugh that would irritate any New Yorker who lives in the apartments above them. She laughs because she’s happy and she doesn’t care who knows it. It’s an infectious sound and Percy feels his chest squeeze at the sound. Her cheeks are pink and her bee antennas are wonky and he wants to tell her he’s in love with her.

“So we suck at this.” She says. “I have another question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Why’d you follow me outside?” _I’ll follow you to the end of the world and then I’ll follow you all the way down, if you’ll have me_. Percy shuffles his feet and they turn the corner.

“Thought you’d like some company.” He says and she looks up at him. “Thought you’d make good company.”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

Annabeth hums but doesn’t react any more. She’s shorter than Percy, enough that even with heels he gets a fairly good view of the top of her head, and it takes him back to the day he met her- moving day in freshman year, when she was a box with beautiful long legs one moment and then on her knees at Percy’s feet, contents of her box scattered across the floor the next. It’s so silly to think about it, how they might have had the perfect meet-cute story, if Percy had been brave enough to ask her name. She’d thanked him when he helped recollect her scarves and stockings and she’d ducked her head and walked off and he’d known the blonde of her hair and he’d known the satin of her tights against his fingers and he’d known that she wasn’t dropped off by anyone.

Percy had thought he knew her then, even if it was just through the hallway incident, just through her friendship with his roommate. Percy had thought he knew her enough to love her. He sees her now and she’s different from any way he has ever seen her before. Her lips are slightly cracked under her lipstick and her voice isn’t quite as angelic. He sees her, dressed as a bee, and she’s never seemed more human.

“I guess I am good company, huh?” She asks. Percy nods, not trusting himself not to go overboard with how happy he is to be here with her. Annabeth hums. “So what’s the deal with Spider-Man?”

Percy looks down at his costume, momentarily having forgotten that he was roaming the streets of the greatest city in the world with a beautiful girl while his ass was wrapped in Spandex. “What’s not to like about him?”

“I couldn’t tell you if I tried.” Annabeth says flatly. “I never watched the movies.”

“The _movie_ -!? I’m guessing asking about your comic knowledge is setting you up for failure.” He says and Annabeth is unapologetic when she laughs. “He’s cool. First of all, he’s a New Yorker. Automatically makes him the best.”

“Of course.” Annabeth says. He thinks she’s from the South. Maybe California. He can’t remember her ever mentioning visiting family. She’s definitely not a New York native, though- he knows by the way she’s hammered and still obviously a little on edge as they walk, looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody’s sneaking up on them. “Groups of people who are universally loathed tend to stick together. I see that.”

“New Yorkers are awesome.” Percy tells her just as a Mr. Met teeters past them, slamming Percy on the shoulder as he does. “Hey, watch it, asshole.” Percy calls over his shoulder.

“Fuck you!” Mr. Met screams gleefully back.

“Sound bunch, New Yorkers.” Annabeth notes and Percy’s face heats up.

“It’s how we love each other.” He brushes off. “But I think Spider-Man is cool, you know? Like, Peter Parker’s just your average loser. Give him a mask and some web shooters- he’s a whole new guy. I think it’s nice to think that if someone gave me a mask, I’d use it to help people.”

“But you aren’t a loser, Percy.” Annabeth’s voice is so quiet he almost misses it to the ambient noise of the city. “ _I_ think you’re cool, at least.”

It’s entirely plausible that she doesn’t know him at all either, but they are acquaintances who have fooled themselves into believing they share anything deeper and neither is insistent on acknowledging it.

“So Spider-Man is like, hero of the people, then?” Annabeth pushes and Percy nods.

“Yeah. Just a regular guy who turns into someone great with the right suit, you know?”

“Sure.” Annabeth says. “Do you feel like that?”

“Like what?”

“Greater than you are.” Annabeth nods to him. “You’re all suited up, right?”

“Yeah, but this is Halloween.” He rolls his eyes. “I don’t know how to break it to you, but I’m not _actually_ a superhero.”

“Sounds like exactly the kind of thing a superhero might say. You know, to keep his cover.”

Percy snorts. She’s kind of funny. He didn’t know that about her. She’s funny and afraid of spiders and a smoker and Percy has known this girl his whole time at college and he’s only just starting to know her at all. Her knuckles brush against his and he doesn’t miss the way she takes a step away from him. Her cheeks turn pink and she averts her gaze.

She talks a lot after that. About the dog she had growing up and how she loves the smell of lavender and then he watches her go off on a tangent of how, if they’re comparing costumes, hers is superior purely because bees are really the superheroes of humanity, trust her because she watched a documentary on it. It’s a full moon above them and drunk partygoers sharing their streets and Percy gets to listen to Annabeth Chase, unfiltered and true, for an entire forty minute walk, and it’s all he can do to stare in amazement at how he’s only just meeting her now.

“I know I talk too much.” She says, somewhere along the story of the first time she saw Zac Efron and fell in love. She tucks a stray curl behind her ear and looks up at him. “And you don’t care about what I thought of Troy Bolton.”

“Believe it or not, I actually kind of do.” Percy can’t imagine why it matters to him that Annabeth thinks Sharpay and Ryan’s performance was better, but it does. It matters to him the way it matters that she would never get a tattoo. He wants to know, needs to know- every detail about her she’ll offer. Her apartment is just down the block they slow down and Percy hopes he’s not the only one who doesn’t want the night to end. “I can’t explain it, but I kind of want you to tell me more.”

Annabeth beams- radiant enough to cast daylight over Manhattan at three in the morning- and they come to a stop outside her building.

“I’m full of opinions I think you’d like listening to.” She tells him, her face bright red. “Maybe-”

“Happy Halloween!” She gets cut off by a very drunk Ariana Grande stumbling out of the building. Ariana throws her arms around Percy and kisses him square on the mouth and then does the same for Annabeth, who looks like she can’t decide whether to be angry or laugh. “Halloween. Best time of the year.” Ariana stage-whispers.

“I believe that you believe that.” Annabeth tells her. “Get home safe.”

  
Ariana stumbles away and Annabeth leans in a little bit to Percy, so close that he can almost feel how perfectly her head would slot into his shoulder, how easily they might fit together.

“You don’t think Halloween is the best time of year?” He asks her, a little bit to distract himself from their closeness with aimless conversation, a little bit to distract her from heading upstairs with aimless conversation.

“No that’s the winter holidays.” Annabeth tells him with a frown.

“No, that’s the merriest season.”

“Fine. Whatever. Halloween….” Annabeth trails off. She’s so close to him, her forearm gently brushing the hairs of his and he thinks how easy it would be for him to hold her hand. He balls his fists up to stop himself from doing something stupid. “Can be a good time, I guess. If we’re brave enough. Mostly it just feels fake, you know? Kind of like this.”

She gestures between them and if Percy were sober he might have taken it like a punch to the gut. For better or worse, they have had one too many drinks past either being offended by or offending the other. It might make them brutal, but it also keeps them honest. And that, Percy can do with.

“What about this?”

“You’ve liked me for _three years_ , Percy.” Annabeth tells him and his brain draws a complete blank for a response. “For three years you told yourself you were too scared, and then you put on some superhero suit and for a moment, you thought you could be different, be braver- but you’re walking me home and you haven’t once even asked if I’m single. Dressing up doesn’t make you someone different.”

“How’d you know I liked you?” He asks and she shrugs her shoulders.

“The way you look at me.” She says quietly. “Nobody looks at me like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She nudges him with her elbow and when he looks up he sees just how cheeky her smile is. “It’s sweet.”

He doesn’t know how to take it, and he definitely doesn’t know how to feel about her knowing him better than he’s ever known her. He looks down at his shoes, his toes only inches from Annabeth’s. He knows she had a boyfriend for a long time- and then six months ago, on April 13th, she’d deleted all his photos off her Instagram (not that Percy stalked her obsessively). Percy Jackson never stood a chance. But his shoes are blue and red and he’s got a spider on his chest and he wonders if maybe there’s somebody else who _does_.

“Are you single?”

“Yeah, what are you going to do about it?”

Percy’s afraid his smile’s going to rip his face apart. He steps an inch closer and feels her move until her bee body presses against his chest.

“I don’t know.” Percy says suddenly. He can’t tell if this is real or not, if Annabeth likes him because she’s only seeing the version of him with seven beers down or because she’s only seeing what she wants to after who-knows-how-many drinks emptied. “What should I do?”

“I think,” Annabeth reaches around him and slowly takes his mask from his hand. She’s gentle when she pulls it over her head, and he wonders if she really thinks he’s that repulsive. “that you should be brave. You’ve got your mask on, what other excuse do you have not to be?”

Percy doesn’t wait for her to repeat herself. He wraps his arm around her big droopy body and pulls her as close to him as her costume will allow, ducking his head and kissing her slowly. She tastes like strawberries and alcohol and a fairy-tale. He leans away, holding her face in his hands.

“Thank you.” He says and she laughs into his palm.

“For what?”

“For letting me know you.” Percy kisses her again, driven somewhat crazy after his first taste and Annabeth pulls him closer. He feels her fingers against his neck and along his jaw and kisses him until he can’t breathe and then she kisses him some more. When she finally pulls away, her blush is almost hysterically deep and her chest heaves slightly.

“Never tell _anyone_ I let you kiss me with a mask on.” She tells him and he laughs. His hand is still on her cheek, her arms now fallen around his waist, and they seem perfectly content to stay here in each other’s presence. He wonders how she knows him enough to be vulnerable with him. Has she been watching him like he had her? Is he some version of her own imagination like she’d been for him?

She looks at him with a steady confidence and there’s something in her expression that tells him her sight is far clearer than his has ever been.

“If I were someone else,” Percy starts and she shakes her head. She reaches up and pulls his mask off for him.

“I like you as you are, Spider-Man.” She smiles. “You’re pretty great. Especially without the suit.”

“Okay.” He buries his face in her shoulder, ignoring how her hair tickles his nose and he never wants to let go. Eventually she draws away from him.

“I’m going to invite you upstairs now.” Annabeth says. “And you can come, of course. But if you declined, and then asked me out on a date… I’d like that.”

“Get lunch with me later today.” Percy says, the words you’re pretty great drowning out any other thought he might have.

“Lunch is too far off. Call me for breakfast.”

“It’s a date.”

He gives her a final kiss goodbye and walks away. It takes everything he has not to look over his shoulder at her one last time. He’s got a date with Annabeth Chase- honeybee, arachnophobe and, he thinks, potentially a newly converted Spider-Man fan.

The night is nothing short of perfect.


End file.
